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of thrift is taught, and a premium put on providence; and at the same time, by a strictly-administered Poor Law a discount and a penalty set on improvidence, the agricultural labourer, and equally the town poor, will be taught, as it were contagiously, habits of self-reliance and self-respect. We must give men some outlook and hope, some means of investment and natural savings bank if we would wean them from the beer-shop, and make them independent of the fatal communism of the Poor Law. On the estate in question no cottager is taken till he can produce evidence of money saved, if it be only a few shillings, as a test of providence; and if he then continues to save money, he has the knowledge and inducement that he will be eligible for a cottage with land on the first vacancy. In addition to this there is a clothing club established, and in sickness or sudden distress such assistance as medicines or strengthening food, or clothing are given, but only to the members of the club, thus instituing another and more inclusive provident test.
The systematic application of these principles, namely, inculcating and promoting providence and self-reliance among the poor, has been found during forty years' experience to be attended with the very best results in the district in question. Those who too ignorantly assert that there is no prospect for the agricultural labourer but the workhouse, might be surprised to find in this district labourers at 11s. per week in the possession of 50l. or 100l. in the savings bank. It is hardly necessary to say that such families are quite beyond the reach of pauperism, indeed a pauper is unknown on the estate. Nor is there any prudential check such as is insisted on by Mr. Stuart Mill, nor yet any natural check to longevity—rather the contrary; the death-rate being less than 14 per 1000; large families and old age are the rule not the exception, and the one supports the other.
By sympathy and supervision, not by direct gifts, a beneficial relation has been promoted between rich and poor not uncommon to many country districts, but rarer in towns—and pauperism has been virtually exterminated. There are no demoralizing charities and few beer-shops—five beer-shops on the estate having been converted into cottages. Little or no money is ever given, but considerable sums have been spent in building cottages, and in draining and other improvements; and some such work is continually going on in the neighbourhood during the winter.
Under different conditions, in some respects under greater difficulties, these same principles may be, because have been, applied to town populations and the work carried out so successfully by Miss Octavia Hill in the relation of a landlord in the worst and poorest districts of Marylebone, where whole courts and alleys have been converted from squalid misery into decent comfortable houses, and the money invested has returned a steady interest of 5 per cent, besides a large surplus for repairs and improvements—shows what results are attainable if the intelligence and active sympathy of Individualism be brought to bear upon this otherwise complicated problem.
Head, Hole & Co., Printers, Farringdon Street, and Ivy Lane, E.C.
